Talk:First Nagorno-Karabakh War

FA criteria

I think this article is going to need some work to meet the FA criteria. The original version from 2007 was 8682 words long; the article is now 12914 words, raising concerns about bloating. The sourcing on the 2007 version also looks superior to the current version, which relies too much on news reporting (while there is an abundance of scholarly sources that discuss this conflict). I am not convinced that sources like today.az or Markar Melkonian's book about his brother are high-quality reliable sources for this topic. Restoring the 2007 version is not an option, however, because of new developments on this issue such as the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. There is also unsourced content in the article and some of the notes. Therefore, I think this may need featured article review. (t · c) buidhe 06:41, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

I think this is fixable without removing the FA status. The bloating may be resolved by relocating some text to relevant articles or splitting per WP:LENGTH. The sources of concern meanwhile could be substituted with better ones. In that case they could be listed here or tagged in the article so that we would know which sources are problematic and need substitution, if any. Brandmeister^talk 09:52, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree that a re-evaluation is overdue, given both the changes to the conflict and the Wikipedia article itself. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:20, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Other issues with the FA criteria are listed at Talk:First_Nagorno-Karabakh_War/Archive_4#Article_issues (t · c) buidhe 21:40, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Pinging MarshallBagramyan as the FA nominator back then. Brandmeister^talk 22:28, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

@Brandmeister and Rosguill: Are either of you interested in fixing up this article? If not, and if the article does not meet the FA criteria, can you nominate this for FAR and outline your concerns there? Both buidhe and I have reached our limit in how many articles we can nominate, so if we were to do so we would have to wait several more months before the nomination. Z1720 (talk) 18:47, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

I currently don't have enough time for either option and looks like nominator MarshallBagramyan will not chime in. So maybe Rosguill... Brandmeister^talk 18:33, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't think I have time to make the needed review and fixes, and frankly an overriding concern I have is that the most recent renaming is at odds with existing literature and should be grounds for removal of FA stata on its own. With that in mind, I don't think I'm the right person to be taking point to review and fix the article. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:56, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

I can commit to make some basic changes. I am not sure about an entire rescaffolding of the article structure, but where sources and grammar and writing style are concerned, I can update those and make the necessary revisions. Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 20:05, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Where are we at?

buidhe, Brandmeister, Rosguill, MarshallBagramyan and Z1720: my attention was just drawn to this article regarding its FA status and I see this discussion of about a year ago. A quick look and I see perhaps a half-dozen or more unsourced paragraphs. I can also see that the infobox is a mess and that is without beginning to have a closer look. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:08, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Hi Cinderella157, from my perspective the issues I brought up are still in the article. I would encourage you to nominate at FAR. (I can't nominate more because of limits). (t · c) buidhe 09:57, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

There's only so much time I can devote to editing (and these days, not even that much). But if there are sections or paragraphs that stand out as particular eye sores, point me to them, and I'll do my best. Thanks. Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 02:23, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Comments Here are some initial observations in respect to the article. These are made in respect to Wikipedia:Featured article criteria and Wikipedia:Compare criteria Good v. Featured article.

• The lead: I found the lead difficult to follow particularly when compared with the lead as written when passed as FA, which was clear and easy to follow.
• Size: I would have some concerns about size - it is a lot to get through. Sections could be summarised in introductory paragraphs per good writing practice.
• Infobox: the infobox is very large and does not appear to follow WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE.
• Citations: there are a half-dozen or so paragraphs that have no citations at all.
  • WP:RS: there are a lot of citations to the biography, My Brother's Road. I also see a twitter feed. These are indicative of a cause for concern and similar concerns have been raised above.
  • There are citations without pages - eg de Waal 2003, presently citation 63.
  • There are citations without sufficient detail to confirm their reliability - eg Demoyan, Hayk (2006) [presently citation 41].
  • Where foreign language sources are used, translations of bibliographic details should be provided - this is WP:En
  • While citations as they appear in the body are consistently in the "superscripted number format", how citations are rendered in the reference section is far from consistent.
    • The article is set up for using the sfn template with a separate bibliography for "printed" works (specifically books, journals and like). This is clearly not consistently followed.
    • There is a separate "notes" section. The distinction has not been followed. This is not "best practice".
• Article title: "first" is a recentism since the 2020 war. It does not appear to be the WP:COMMONNAME. It is unnecessary as a disambiguation since the 2020 war is disambiguated with the year - 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. I note the move discussion here but the premises appear to be dated and without reference to WP:VER or WP:P&G but rather as a to a new situation and not the longer term. Regardless, there is an issue of capitalisation in prose per MOS:CAPS - neither "first" nor "war" are consistently capitalised in sources WRT the title phrase.
• "Azeri" is not readily recognisable as the En language demonym/alternative to Azerbaijani [1]. See also, Azerbaijanis. It is used in a way that obscures meaning.
• There are acronyms (initialisms) used without giving the expanded form (see OSCE Minsk Group - that the linked article uses the initialism is not a reason to divert from the guidance).
• Table: there is a table (section "Aerial warfare") that does not render as intended. I am not particularly familiar with tables to remedy this.

Some of these issues I might be able to address - some I might not. I do not profess to be an expert on this subject and the magnitude of changes are probably beyond my capacity. There is also the issue of WP:DS and, rightly or wrongly, this is likely to impede the process. I don't see this being resolved in the reasonable future (though I might be pleasantly surprised). Cinderella157 (talk) 12:28, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, and agree with most of the above criticisms about the article. Also agree that there are significant issues with regard to the use of some sources (which, perhaps back in 2006-2008, when it was being written, was understandable because so little secondary material existed on the war), though it's rather unfortunate that despite the passage of time the war still fails to attract enough scholars to write about it. Again, it's a matter of time, and I'll try devote as much of it as I possibly can to help improve its quality and address its shortcomings. Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 12:33, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Dates of war: MarshallBagramyan, are there sources that assign the dates of the war and particularly when it started. Many of the earlier events within the present date range precede the war "proper" as written in the article. IAW the "standard" MILHIST format, these might better be described as the "prelude" to the war - unless sources are indicating otherwise? Cinderella157 (talk) 09:58, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. I think most commentators and scholars will agree that the war proper began at the end of 1991/early 1992, after the collapse of central authority and the beginning of warfare between two identifiable and armed belligerent sides. The conflict itself began in 1988, with roots of course going back further, to the period during WWI. Perhaps we can reframe the structure in the manner you propose (collapsing the events into a prelude section) and trim as much fat in those individual sections as we can? Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 14:41, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Hi, I have made an initial restructure accordingly. Please modify as appropriate. To the date, as the content expert, could you please modify the start date IAW sources. The standard format would also include an 'Aftermath' section and some of those section that follow the "war" might best be combined in such a section. How this might 'form' isn't quite so clear to me. I can see that this will probably require a restructure of the post-war text. Consequently, it isn't going to be quite so straight forward.Cinderella157 (talk) 09:51, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

I also see that the background could be slashed probably to less than half. I could draft something but it would then need to be referenced.

• The revolution occurred
• A Federation declared but was short lived
• It dissolved in to separate states
• Two of them warred over the region.
• The Bolsheviks took power and assigned the borders.
• There was a substantial Armenian majority in the region though this has been somewhat diluted with time.

I think that these are the pertinent points and there is a lot of extraneous padding. It would be good if there was a main article/s to see also but I haven't come across them yet. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 00:12, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Weaponry table: (First Nagorno-Karabakh War#Building armies) The table in its present format isn't reader friendly where it presents figures for Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh in a single column (with a total). These should be divided into three separate columns. As I have already said, tables aren't my thing. Obviously, unsourced material should also be deleted. Cinderella157 (talk) 08:55, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Beligerents in infobox There are entries under this of of "arms suppliers" and "foreign groups". There are multiple issues with this. Firstly, it would, by virtue of the heading, classify the entries as "beligerents", regardless of sources. There are sources but a source should classify them as belligerents for them to be labeled as such. Per WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE we don't write the article in the infobox. Most of this isn't supported by the body of the article; or, if it is, not in a coherent way that would support the broad classifications - ie one cannot see a clear section/s that support same (to the extent indicateding the infobox). There is clearly nuance to the entries broadly (by headings) and specifically, that cannot be captured by dot-point entries in an infobox (I realise that they are not actually 'dot-pointed'). Attempts to justify inclusion in the infobox that aren't 'explicitly' supported by sources or clearly supported by the body of the article would appear to fall to WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. Given the present sate of the article, I would propose deleting these entries from the infobox. Cinderella157 (talk) 11:11, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'll continue in the meantime with my copy edits. Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 17:41, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Break 1

Rendering of citation To the following citation: <ref name="SIPRI1994">{{cite web |title=SIPRI Yearbook 1994 |url=https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/SIPRI%20Yearbook%201994.pdf |website=sipri.org |publisher=[[Stockholm International Peace Research Institute]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200826153836/https://www.sipri.org/yearbook/1994 |archive-date=26 August 2020 |date=1994 |page=88 }}{{'''harvnb'''|Chorbajian Donabedian Mutafian|1994|pp=[https://books.google.am/books?id=OUlnYdOHJ3wC&pg=PA14 13–18]}} Table of conflict locations with at least one major armed conflict in 1993</ref>

I have been able to have the citation render by changing "sfn" to "harvnb" where it didn't render at all before (see citation 14 here). It now renders as follows:

"SIPRI Yearbook 1994". sipri.org. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. 1994. p. 88. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 August 2020.Chorbajian Donabedian Mutafian 1994, pp. 13–18 Table of conflict locations with at least one major armed conflict in 1993. [italics added for emphasis]

I'm not certain, but I don't think that the italicised text is actually necessary or even if it refers to the second source but the first source that does contain a table. I can't actually see the pages linked in the second source. Unless there is good reason not to, it would be better to split this combined citation into two - loosing the italicised text. Just checking first. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:06, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

NKR abbreviation is not defined at its first occurrence

suggest adding link NKR 2A02:1812:1126:5D00:8403:95E1:2C28:96EC (talk) 08:54, 19 August 2022 (UTC)